Supersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (14 page)

T
he gloom at Lockheed headquarters was as thick as the day was beautiful. The year had been a series of shocks one after another. The first and most visceral was the apparent failure of Lockheed’s reentry into the commercial transport field, the sixty-six-passenger Electra II. Too busy to compete with Boeing and Douglas in the jet transport race, Lockheed had decided to take a leaf from the success of the Vickers Viscount turboprop airliner. Drawing on its experience with the C-130, it had created a low-wing four-turboprop airliner. Much faster than the Martin 404s or Convair 240s it would replace, the Electra was perfect for American and Eastern Airlines to use on the short-haul sections of their lines where a 707 or DC-8 was not economical to operate. But three Electras had crashed by March 17, 1960, the first one just a week after it entered airline service. The first crash was probably caused by pilot error, but in the next two the Electra had broken up in the air, killing all aboard, with no obvious reason for the catastrophe. Lockheed fought the Federal Aviation Administration’s attempt to ground the aircraft. Elwood Quesada, a famous pilot and military commander, was the FAA Administrator, and he compromised—the Electra could continue to fly, but he limited it to a 295-mile-per-hour cruising speed. Sales of the aircraft immediately dried up, but the worst part of the story was still to come. Today Bob Gross was going to have to make a decision about how Lockheed would bear the expense of modifying the aircraft, including all those already in airline service.

Next in the seeming unending series of disasters was the shock of Gary Powers’s being shot down, imprisoned, tried, and sentenced. It was now general knowledge that a surface-to-air missile had destroyed the U-2, with consequences far greater than were being admitted to the public. Nikita Khrushchev had played his cards carefully, not announcing the shoot-down until May 5 and not revealing that Powers was alive until two days later. Khrushchev went on to meet with Presidents Eisenhower and de Gaulle at summit talks in Paris and, in a masterpiece of showmanship, declared that the Soviet Union would not take part in the talks unless the U.S. government immediately stopped all flights over Soviet territory, apologized for those already made, and punished everyone responsible. Eisenhower was embarrassed by the fact that the United States had lied about Powers’s flight and promised to suspend all future flights while he was President. This was exactly what Khrushchev wanted—a chance to shore up his failing regime. He declared that Eisenhower’s response was inadequate and stormed out of the Paris summit conference, returning to the Soviet Union as a hero who had humiliated the United States.

Everyone at Lockheed and in the CIA knew from the start that ultimately the Soviets would shoot a U-2 down, and work was already under way on a replacement with far greater capability. But Eisenhower’s promise to suspend overflights put the replacement program in the same jeopardy as the U-2 program.

George Mulliner, Bob Gross’s executive assistant, came into the outer office and said, “You can come in now, gentlemen.”

Vance always made it a point to defer to the Lockheed staff. When he stood up, he waved Willis Hawkins and John Margwarth, Lockheed’s director of safety, on ahead of him. They were followed by the other Lockheed executives, the senior men in every discipline in the company. Everyone in the room was an old friend and Gross nodded to Hawkins, saying, “Let’s have the bad news, Willis.”

Hawkins, small, direct, economical in his speech, began his analysis with a brief sentence: “It’s the whirl mode phenomenon.”

At that moment, only he and Margwarth knew what he meant. But using charts and drawing freehand on the huge blackboard that had been brought in, he gave them a quick engineering analysis of the catastrophic results of a sudden force being applied to the gyroscopic characteristics of a swiftly rotating propeller.

Shannon was an experienced engineer, but it was difficult for him to follow Hawkins’s discussion, even when Margwarth jumped in with explanations. When Hawkins finished, Margwarth summed it up in layman’s terms for the non-engineers in the group, concluding with the key statement: “Essentially, the flaw was in the three-member structure connecting the gearbox and the engine. It failed and put a precession force on the propeller, which in turn placed an impossible stress on the wing.”

Gross’s face lit up. “But that means it was not a Lockheed design error.”

Hawkins nodded, obviously comforted, but showing no other emotion. He might have been expected to be a little triumphant, a little pleased that his design was vindicated, but he was thinking now of the passengers, victims of a wildly improbable circumstance.

Gross asked, “What is the fix?”

“We can modify the wing to accommodate the stresses,” Hawkins replied. “Allison will modify the structure that connects the gearbox to the engine. Without any reservations, I can guarantee to you that there will never be another accident like this on the Electra II.”

There was a long silence as Bob Gross hung his head, deep in thought. Finally he looked up to Carl Kotchian, his vice president for production.

“Carl, how much will it cost us to modify all of the aircraft we’ve sold, or have waiting for sale?”

Kotchian was surprised at the question. Hawkins had previously alerted him that it was not Lockheed’s design error, and he was already preparing to wage a legal battle to lay the modification costs at the door of the engine manufacturer, Allison. But he had the figures at his fingertips.

“At least twenty-five million.”

Gross’s face went white. Lockheed had been doing well, but no one had expected an outlay like this. Then he said, “We’ll do it. Lockheed stands behind its products. We’ll pay every cent, and make it right.”

Gross’s words spread shock around the room; every man there knew what the huge charge would do to the balance sheet and ultimately to the stock price. But they expected nothing less from Bob Gross.

As they were filing out, Gross called out, “Vance, have you got a few minutes? There are a few things I’d like to fill you in on.”

When the door closed behind the last person, Vance said, “That’s a pretty noble gesture, Bob. Not many company chairmen would think that way.”

Gross shook his head wearily, reached up, and ran his finger along the fuselage of a model of the U-2 that now occupied a place of pride on his desk.

“It’s tough, Vance, but we have to do it. It will pay off later, I know; the airlines will remember this, even if the traveling public never hears about it. They wouldn’t understand if they did.”

He called for some coffee, then motioned for them to move over to the green leather sofa. Vance remembered when Gross had purchased it, many years before. He had agonized over the cost, worried that people would think he was being extravagant with company money. It was as well-worn as the two old friends were now and seemed to enfold them as they sank down in it.

“Vance, you’ve been a friend for a long time, and I know how you’ve been suffering with us through the U-2 problem. I thought I’d give you a couple of pieces of good news for a change.”

“I’m all ears, Bob. Glad to hear you have some.” And he was. Gross deserved whatever good was going his way.

“How much do you know about the Discoverer program?”

“Bob, security here at Lockheed is good. I know you are involved in it, but all I know is what’s been in the papers. Eisenhower’s called it a scientific program, it had a whole bunch of failures, and the public is pretty disenchanted. They’d like to see a success.”

“Well, we’ve had one, but we cannot tell anyone. The only reason I’m telling you is that I want to borrow Bob Rodriquez for about six months to work here full-time on the project.”

Gross saw the shock in Shannon’s face. Gross knew how important Rodriquez was to his firm.

“Before you say anything, let me brief you on Discoverer. That is just a cover name. The real project name is Corona, and it is not for scientific research; it’s a photoreconnaissance satellite. We’ve just had our first successful mission—number fourteen, can you imagine?—and we got more useful intelligence on the Soviet Union in that one mission than we did in all the previous U-2 missions combined.” He paused to let this sink in.

Shannon was stunned. The ramifications were incredible. First of all, there was the sheer magnitude of the success after fourteen failures. It was amazing the program had not been canceled long ago. And what an advance! A spy satellite avoided all the problems of overflying the Soviet Union’s borders, there was no pilot to capture or kill, and once in orbit it was invulnerable to any attack or interference.

He was about to congratulate Gross but didn’t speak for another minute. Shannon also saw that Corona diminished the U-2 at a time when it had already run its course, at least as a spy plane. Even worse, Corona reduced the probability that there would be a follow-on project. He knew that Kelly Johnson had been burning up his slide rule on a new aircraft, but beyond that he knew nothing. Nor should he have. Lockheed was deadly serious about its security.

Finally he said, “Bob, this is wonderful news. For an outfit that has been building airplanes all its life, this is a real triumph for Lockheed.”

“Thanks, Vance. It’s just the beginning, too. I can see our missiles and space side outgrowing our aircraft side, and in ten years or less. But we’re not done with airplanes, not yet, and that’s really the main reason I had to talk to you.”

Shannon had stood up and strode around the room while he was thinking about Corona; now he came back and sat down again on the couch.

“Vance, you know that Kelly’s been working hard on another project. It’s a spy plane, too, but one that will have incredible performance—long range, continuous Mach 3.0 speed, altitudes above ninety thousand feet. And it will be built like a battleship, too, nothing like the U-2, all lightweight and delicate.”

“Mach 3? Is it manned? And what kind of power plants will you have? I don’t know of any jet engine that could produce enough thrust to fly Mach 3 for long periods—or, for that matter, fly Mach 3 at all.”

“Yes, and it will be a handful, but we have pilots who can fly it. The first customer is the CIA, naturally, and they’ve picked Kelly’s last proposal to go with. We’re calling it the A-12. There are already a dozen variants, including a two-placer for the Air Force, but that’s all downstream. You mentioned the engines—that’s why I want to talk to you. You’ve been in jet engines since Whittle was a pup, and we’ve got a problem we’ve never even contemplated before. We want to fly at Mach 3, but we want the aircraft to be invisible to radar, and two big engines make that almost impossible. That will be your task, if you are willing to take it on. You’ll be working directly with Ben Rich, of course, and it was Ben who asked for you.”

Ben Rich was Kelly Johnson’s heir apparent in the Skunk Works. The two men could not have been more different in their size or their managerial approaches. Where Kelly was always hurtled down a hallway, too preoccupied to greet people, Ben’s style was hail-fellow-wellmet. Where people dreaded Kelly popping into their office—it could only be bad news—they often looked forward to seeing Ben.

“Of course, Bob, I’m flattered—Ben is a genius, and if he thinks I can help, I’ll do it.”

“It looks like I’m gutting your business, pulling Rodriquez in for Corona and you in for the A-12, but we’ll make it up to you. You draw up the contracts, tell me exactly what you need to cover everything you might have made in the next year, and you come to work for us. And you can do it part-time, give us thirty hours a week; that’s all I’m asking.”

“Bob, you are putting me on the spot. I’ve already signed a contract with Boeing, guaranteeing them twenty hours a week. It’s secret, too, just company secret, but it’s a commitment.”

Gross laughed. “What’s the problem? You work twenty for them, thirty for us, that’s only fifty hours a week, and you haven’t worked less than sixty hours a week for the last thirty years. And as for Boeing’s secret, I won’t put you on the spot, but I’d bet five dollars that it has to do with a supersonic transport.”

Shannon grinned sheepishly, and they shook hands. Gross walked him out, his arm around his shoulder, asking about Jill and his family. As they walked, Vance took a closer look at his old friend. The stress was telling on him.

“Bob, we ought to chuck everything and take our families on a month’s vacation. It would do us both a world of good.”

“It surely would, Vance, but you know and I know there are no more vacations in this business, not with the progress the damned Commies are making. We are at war again, or still, and you and I are still on the front lines.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

January 16, 1961

Moscow, USSR

E
ven at seventy-two, Andrei Tupolev could never rest easy. Memories of how quickly he had fallen from a height few Russian engineers ever reached hung around him in a shroud, as ominous and ugly as the “black dog” of depression that Winston Churchill complained of in his writings.

As he was the founder of the TsAGI, the Central Aero-Hydrodynamics Institute, a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and a holder of the highest award of the motherland, the Order of Lenin, his position seemed unassailable. One successful aircraft after another flowed from his design bureau, including the largest in the world, the
Maxim Gorky
. His aircraft made long-distance flights, set records, were used by the Soviet Air Force. Yet on the morning of October 21, 1937, four members of the dreaded NKVD arrested him. In an absurd cover story, he was charged with selling the plans of the Messerschmitt Bf 110 twin-engine fighter to Germany. The real charges were far more serious, alleging that Tupolev was leading a mutinous organization within the Soviet aviation industry and personally committing sabotage as an agent of French intelligence.

The last charge had frightened him most, for although it was totally false, there were circumstances that could be misinterpreted. His visits to the United States in 1935 and to Spain in 1936 had included some contacts with both U.S. and French intelligence. It was inevitable that their agents should seek him out. It was easy for them to secure invitations to the receptions held for him by his hosts. They sent their most able and sometimes most attractive agents to find out what they could from his speeches or from casual conversation. There was one young woman he remembered vividly. She was fluent in Russian and had a piercing intelligence. Her seemingly artless questions had gone to the heart of some of his best designs. He often wondered what might have been if he had been courageous enough to try to escape his duty, his family, his honor, and pursue her, as his body had urged. Incredibly, she had contacted him again this year, in the guise of a letter from the Dassault company in France, inviting him to speak at a conference in Paris. He recognized her name at once. Madeline Behar. How strange that she should write, that she should use the same name. It must be that she wished him to remember her.